A Doctor Walked into a Bar
by DemonKittyAngel
Summary: 3 years after the crash Ryan Stone sits in a bar. "And where were you when the satellites crashed?" A small idea that took a mind of it's own.


Yes, yes. I should be working on my other fic. I should be working on a lot of things. But this is something that hasn't left me alone since I saw the movie a few weeks ago. There's just something so humorous in this situation.

I own nothing except my cat. And technically he belongs to my mom.

-A Doctor Walked into a Bar-

The smoke filters through the air carrying muffled conversations throughout the bar. Ryan signals the bartender for another beer and contemplates the holiday. They've gotten a new satellite in orbit and cell phones are working again. She considers it a bit of a shame. Without all the instant access technology allowed people, everything had felt more connected. She knows her opinion is a bit skewed since she didn't try to connect with people for years before the satellites fell, but she's met others who agree.

She knows her story has spread among certain circles - mainly those involved with satellites themselves, but the majority of the world doesn't know. She has a mostly finished book that she isn't sure she wants to publish. She wrote it out of pride for what she accomplished but she was a private person at heart. Releasing her story would just create a media circus - especially with communication going back up. She's expecting her story to be released regardless (even if only as rumors) so she reaffirms her decision to publish the book. She'd rather the official version be the only version.

A man stands up on the other side of the bar and starts yelling for everyone's attention. As the bar quiets down he clears his throat gruffly and starts, "As we all know, satellites have been down for a few years. But thanks to my friend Joshua here," he pats the shoulder of a man sitting next to him with his head in his hands who's tugging his baseball cap lower over his eyes. "and engineers like him, we finally have new satellites orbiting the planet."

He pauses and looks at everyone around him. "I remember when the satellites fell. I was heading home from work, like a lot of you folks, when the traffic lights went out. Just two cars ahead of me a crash happened in the intersection. A lot of people, myself included, got crushed by the cars in front and behind us as traffic raced to halt. Everyone was going for their phones - just trying to figure out what's going on."

As he stops for a moment Ryan knows what's going through his head - through all of their heads. She only heard about it later but had seen the damage. People had panicked. Riots had started. People were killed.

"It was several days before anyone really knew what was going on. Radio became the main form of communication, entertainment, and most of all, news. I barely knew how to work the old radio - I only rarely used the one in the car." he pauses here and stares into the glass in his hand. "It was hard for a long while. Our entire lifestyles were uprooted. But now," he looked back to the crowd. "Now, thanks to people like Joshua - thanks to every person who worked on the new satellites - the age of technology has come again! Cheers!"

Agreement rippled through the bar as people raised their glasses and several gathered around Joshua to offer personal thanks. People settled back into their seats but a new atmosphere spread through the room. It seemed hearing his story made everyone want to reminisce. The bar turned into its own group and Ryan listened to them one by one.

A blonde by the end had a humorous story. "My husband and I had just gotten engaged. He's from England so we were skyping with his parents to tell them the good news and the connection cut out in the middle of the sentence. We thought they'd heard the whole thing but when we got a frantic letter from his parents a few months later asking 'Amy and you what?' we realized that they didn't know. We wrote them back clearing it up but they came out to visit before the letter arrived there. They had come up with all these ridiculous notions of what may have been wrong that by the time we set them straight we were all laughing."

The trucker to the right of her had a more sober tale. "I was crossing an intersection. My girlfriend, Jessica, had a smile like the sun, she had made a joke. Don't even remember what it is anymore. The light hadn't turned yellow, I was gonna go through the intersection with plenty of time. I was too busy laughing with her to look. We were rammed. They say the concussion knocked her out so she didn't even feel anything. The truck turned over and over..." there was an uneasy silence. "By the time I came to, she was gone."

The man directly on her left put back a shot before starting. "I was handling an interview with buyers from Tokyo. When the connection went out in the middle of the meeting, my boss went ballistic. Suspended me on the spot and said I'd be fired if it was in any way my fault. He finally called maintenance to look at the problem and even when it became clear that internet was down and it wasn't my fault, I was still suspended. Ruined my record and stopped my upcoming promotion. The dick still hasn't apologized even though it clearly wasn't my fault."

It was at this time that Joshua stumbled over clearly more inebriated than when his friend had made his speech and thus, less shy. He quickly ordered two shots, put the first one back, and then struck up the bartender. "You know, I've been hearing a lot of stories about where people were when the satellites went down, but I know one that puts them all to shame." He sipped half his next shot. "There's a story going around NASA about the astronaut who made it.

"She's a legend. She was a mission specialist who was only going to have the one mission, but she was the only one who made it. Apparently she went to three different satellites before she found a functioning escape pod that she used to make it to the surface. Never gave up hope and never stopped trying."

Ryan snorts at the last part and while no one calls her on it she gets a couple flat looks.

"That's actually what I was mostly working on - making the escape pods more straight forward and with more fail safes. Her greatest trouble was with the different designs from the different countries. She ended up crashing in a Chinese pod. She kept her head cool and figured out how to work the unfamiliar pod and got home, cool as a cucumber. She's the epitome of what to do in an emergency in space." He finishes his drink as he finishes his story and Ryan chuckles. So that's how they tell it.

She gets a few more dirty looks and Joshua swaggers over to her. "What do you find so funny about it? It's a true story. Stone is a name you're all going to know in the next few weeks." She laughs some more and signals for another beer.

"The way you tell it, she's a national treasure. 'The epitome of what to do'." She picks up her new beer and pops the cap.

Joshua narrows his eyes at her. "And where were you when the satellites fell? Since Ryan Stone's adventure in space isn't impressive enough for you."

Ryan sips her beer and wonders where she should start. She lifts it in silent salute to Matt. He always loved a good story, and this was one for the ages. After a quick sip she reaches for her wallet and pulls out her ID, just so no one would question her identity. She needed to practice for the media circus that was coming anyway.

"When the satellites fell, I was in outer space..."

-End-

I made a number of assumptions here for the stories.

Yes, I know satellites don't actually control phone service, tv, traffic signals, or internet. Only parts of each would be affected by a satellite crash. I'm just going for mass panic and disaster.

1. Traffic control. I don't know what effect it would have if the satellites crashed and they probably have a system of some kind to keep it running regardless. In my version, to cause more chaos, without a proper signal the lights went out. Probably didn't stay that way for long, but long enough to cause a lot of problems.

2. Rush hour. I could have chosen it to be any time since that truly doesn't matter but I felt that this would be the easiest to make the situation recognizable. Assume it is slightly after 5.

3. Tokyo. 5pm in Chicago is approx. 7am in Tokyo. What was a late meeting in one city was early in another.

4. Rioting. People have just lost TV, Cellphones, Internet - all major paths of communication and the cornerstones of our way of life just drops out from beneath the world and they can see pieces of satellites burning up in the atmosphere. Traffic lights are out and cars are crashed. There is no way people wouldn't panic in such a situation.

5. On a personal note, it's my idea that she crashed somewhere around southern Cambodia or Vietnam. The tall grass in the water is distinctly Asian and the vegetation is tropical. She's at least in that geographic zone.

6. NASA is going to make a poster out of her. That's just how society works. Now that they have mass media coming back, her story will be everywhere.

7. 3 years. I can't imagine that they would just throw anything back up there after such a disaster. I bet they took time to look over the design for every aspect of the satellites. For the fire that started on the Russian station most definitely. The trouble she had with the escape pods being so different is also something I can't imagine they'd leave unaddressed. And since instant communication is down, international cooperation is slow.

If you think it through there's a lot of devastating situations and consequences.


End file.
